EVENT: Gresham College – Prison and Why We Send People There: Does it Work? Should it?

‘They deserve to be put away’; ‘Appeal the sentence – too short’; ‘They should lock him up and throw away the key’. How civilised has it ever been to imprison other humans – or to want to do it? How many prisoners had their fates determined by circumstance, how many by truly free will? How often has increasing in prison building been used to increase a politician’s vote? How impossible would it be for most politicians to argue for fewer prisons because they do not work, when as a society we have to assume they do?

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